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Heart Disease Risk Linked With Spouses’ Social Support
Matters of the heart can influence actual heart health, according to new research. A study from researchers at the University of Utah shows that the ways in which your spouse is supportive -- and how you support your spouse -- can actually have significant bearing on your overall cardiovascular health. The findings reveal that when both partners perceive the support they get from each other as ambivalent -- that is, sometimes helpful and sometimes upsetting– each partner’s levels of coronary artery calcification (CAC) tend to be particularly high. These results are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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An Antidote for Mindlessness
The New Yorker: In the mid-nineteen-seventies, the cognitive psychologist Ellen Langer noticed that elderly people who envisioned themselves as younger versions of themselves often began to feel, and even think, like they had actually become younger. Men with trouble walking quickly were playing touch football. Memories were improving and blood pressure was dropping. The mind, Langer realized, could have a strong effect on the body.
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Talking to Your Child After You Yell
The Wall Street Journal: Nearly every parent loses control and screams at the children now and then. But what if you do it repeatedly?Researchers suspect parents are yelling more. Parents have been conditioned to avoid spanking, so they vent their anger and frustration by shouting instead. Three out of four parents yell, scream or shout at their children or teens about once a month, on average, for misbehaving or making them angry, research shows. Increasingly, therapists and parenting experts are homing in on how it hurts a child, as well as how to stop it. Raising your voice isn't always bad.
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Political Map: Does Geography Shape Your Ideology?
NPR: The political map of America changes, but it doesn't change very quickly. Massachusetts was a reliably liberal state decades ago and still is. The South is still the South. This raises the question of why it is that certain areas come to be reliably liberal or conservative. ... Exactly, so that's the theory suggest that geography shapes your ideology. There's new research now that links the red state/blue state phenomenon with the fact that 40 to 50 million Americans move every year. So we are an increasingly mobile society. I spoke with psychologist Brian Nosek at the University of Virginia.
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Preschool Push Moving Ahead in Many States
The New York Times: Preschool is having its moment, as a favored cause for politicians and interest groups who ordinarily have trouble agreeing on the time of day. President Obama devoted part of his State of the Union address to it, while the deeply red states of Oklahoma and Georgia are being hailed as national models of preschool access and quality, with other states and cities also forging ahead on their own. ... But researchers say the quality of Head Start programs vary widely, and that studies often compare Head Start participants with children in other, potentially better, preschool programs. James J.
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How Color Shapes Our Lives
The Atlantic: Jay Neitz has cured colorblindness. At least he thinks he could cure colorblindness, if the FDA would let him operate on humans. What Neitz, a vision expert at the University of Washington, has done for sure is given monkeys the ability to see red. Like most mammals, squirrel monkeys have only two types of cone cells in their eyes—blue and green—and can, therefore, only see those colors. But by doing some genetic kung fu, Neitz, along with his lab partner (and wife), the neuroscientist Maureen Neitz, was able to convert some of the monkeys’ green cones to red, giving them the same trichromatic vision that humans have. Well, most humans.
